Gone Boys
by everyone'ssister
Summary: Tag for 12.08, LOTUS. Inspired by the film Gone Girl. Three weeks and two days gone. Small windows into Dean and Sam's time behind bars, and the way it influences them. Appearances by Castiel and Mary
1. Part 1 Dean

GONE BOYS

Part 1.

DEAN.

(one hour gone)

Sam's face is white across from him in the back of the armored van. Puppy dog eyes unconsciously making an appearance in worry and distraction. Fingers tremble and wring themselves in the hem of his coat, his left leg vibrates in one of Sam's more noticeable nervous tells. Their eyes meet nearly every second of the ride to wherever they are going.

This is one they don't know how to get out of.

Sam is looking at him...he's back to being a little boy and looking to Dean to fix everything. And Dean, God help him, can't fix this, damnit. (Not like when Sam was four and he managed to break a pair of dad's binoculars. Sam had come to him trembling with fear and regret, the broken pieces in his hands and watched with big, hero-worshiping eyes as Dean put the binoculars back together and saved the day once again. He'll never forget the light and admiration in Sam's baby eyes, the way it made Dean feel, the feeling that he could make the world perfect for his little brother.) Dean lowers his eyes in shame and anxiety, no, he can't fix this one, he has no idea how to get them out of this.

The cuffs are cold and cruel against the skin of his wrists and years and years of freedom, wind on his face and the impala eating up highway has programmed him to hate this...his mind screams with the wrongness of it. He is meant to be free and wild, the modern day cowboy. He's used to sleeping under the night sky and howling at the moon so to speak...it's who they are, how they were raised.

He and Sam thrive on freedom and each other like the necessity of air and gravity itself. Their souls orbit around each other in a preordained order like the sun and moon. The stars appear and disappear each in their own time just like love and devotion and a strong sense of justice takes turns ruling the Winchester's minds. They can't be stifled, they can't be smothered by rules and iron bars...they can't survive like that.

The van comes to a rough halt throwing both boys against the wall. Dean listens as the door is unlocked from the outside and tenses, squints his eyes as they open and bright sunlight accosts his dulled senses. Then hands are on him pulling him out of the van...

Pulling him away from Sammy.

He resists on instinct trying to jerk himself out of the restraining hold and throw himself towards Sam. He's rewarded with what feels like a baton in his stomach and his body and cheek thrust into rough sand. He waits for the darkness to clear from his vision and arches his body against the knee in his back trying to find Sam's face, fingers clenching handfuls of useless sand and air.

"Sam," he barely grunts out, the air knocked from him.

"Dean!" He hears Sam cry desperately, hears a soft 'whoosh' of air as if Sam got punched in the gut, and then the sound of calls and struggles fade away.

True panic starts setting in as Dean realizes he's being separated from his brother.

...

(three hours gone)

He finally lays burning, dry eyes on his brother again when they're brought together in a long grey hallway. Sam's clad in the same greenish-grey overalls as him. Doesn't look any better on Sam then it did on Dean either.

Sam has a darkening bruise forming on the lower right corner of his mouth to match Dean's blackening eye...seems they both had behavioral issues. Their eyes jump to meet, relief flowing from both of them and pooling sweetly in the space between them. Sam's lips lift in a barely there smile that lifts his tired, stressed eyes just a little.

Dean reaches out for his little brother before he even knows what he's doing. Reaches towards freedom, sanity, comfort and company...security and the only presence he completely trusts. Wants to wrap himself in that warmth and safety, wants to be that to Sam too. His hand is hit away nastily with a black baton. He hisses, and Sam's eyes darken and his lips slim into a desperate line.

"No touching!" The guards behind them yell, pushes them apart and Dean sends them a nasty look. They're jerked away from each other as one of the guards unlocks a heavy metal door. "Get in." He snarls at Dean and Dean's heart stops beating as his wide eyes follow Sam as he's pulled down the hall and away from him.

The guard has both hands flattened on his chest and is shoving him into the claustrophobic cell as his brother's pale, anxious face gets farther and farther away.

"No," he grunts out, fighting with all his might, pushing against the brute force of the guard in front of him, "Where are you taking my brother? Sam!"

The door closes on him but not before he hears Sam's muffled yell of his name. The walls close in on his suffocatingly, his chest tightens with panic and lack of breath and fresh air. The severity of their situation hitting him fully with the absence of Sammy.

He slams both fists into the door in anger, frustration and desperation, "SAM!" He yells, forehead hitting the cold metal barrier. Fists useless and aching on the thick iron.

He doesn't know it now but over the next few days this heart chilling memory will be the only comfort he has to wrap around himself...the only warmth to cushion the bitter cold of loneliness, the only sanity that keeps the walls from slimming and crushing him between their grey faces, the only hope that they'll be together again, that they'll breathe free air again, that they'll sit together side by side in the impala again...the last time he was with Sam, the last time he heard his voice.

The last time Dean saw his face.

...tbc

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Half the hiatus is gone at least, lol! More of this coming soon, hope you like!? ;)


	2. Part 2 Sam

Part 2.

Sam.

(one hour gone)

It is dark inside the van they are being transported in but Sam can still hear his brother breathing, can still feel his calming presence despite the panic simmering in his veins. He blindly stretches out his chained together legs and feels them brush against Dean's. His brother doesn't move, doesn't make a sound, but ever so subtly leans his own chained legs into the contact.

Every other sound is drowned out by the engine, Sam is fast to become panicky and breathless in the blackness surrounding them. His eyes blink quickly but he still can't see anything, he doesn't know how Dean is feeling but he's almost sure this must be what being buried alive feels like.

His fingers clench forcefully around the thick hem of his coat and he can hear the chains beginning to shake with his nervous tremble. He grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes closed as he tries to breath slower, tries to think of Dean, thinks of the president they saved and hopefully America alongside him.

He shivers thinking of the bunker, the impala, their homes. He thinks of Mary adrift and alone in this strange new world, thinks of Cas, oblivious and loyal and fierce as a guard dog. Can't picture either of them doing terribly well without Sam and Dean there for them.

And his brother, oh god, he thinks as even his brain is starting to short circuit now. Dean can't survive like this, can't live locked up. His wonderful brother needs the wind in his face, the freedom to choose to do the right thing, the tarmac to show Baby off on.

He's feeling the darkness and the walls to the van smothering and suffocating him as he realizes he and Dean may never be free again...how were they ever supposed to get out of this one?

"Sammy."

It comes unexpectedly out of the darkness all around him. It breaks through his panic as easily as a warm knife through soft butter, the sound of it blankets over him soothingly, fills his insides with quiet and hope and...I'm here, Sammy...not leaving you, we're gonna be just fine.

He knows no response is expected just lets himself quieten under the echoes of Dean's voice calling his name in his ears. Begins to steel himself for what's coming as the vehicle stops throwing them roughly against the walls.

The sharp sound of the doors being unlocked and opened grate on his ears, sunlight sears into his eyes and lowers his head to hide from it. Hands on his arms dragging him from the van and hears Dean huffing in annoyance somewhere close by, followed by scrambling boots and a grunt of pain.

"Sam..."

He opens his eyes the sun fading from his eyesight as he zeros in on his brother's form flattened in the sand with a large guard kneeing him in the back. The husky breaths wheezing from his mouth let Sam know his brother has already been clued into the fact that he's not supposed to fight...and that they are going to be separated.

"Dean!" He makes out throwing his body weight towards Dean's figure just before he's gifted with a punch in his stomach. He gasps, leaning over with the shock of it, mouth open seeking air that his body is refusing to take right now.

Two guards each take an arm and drag him away from Dean, who is still lying in the dirt, and inside a building as he fruitlessly fights through the breathlessness. He goes limp as a door slams behind them, an official barrier between he and his brother. No fight, no reason to fight without Dean.

...

(three hours gone)

People have talked to him, tried to softly bribe him into spilling his guts with fake kindness. They take his clothes and personal affects after they see his lips are stubbornly sealed, shoving an impersonal green-grey pair of overalls at him to put on...effectively stripping him of his identity.

He finds his mind slipping and wandering, already seeking an escape from this rather cruel reality. He thinks of Dean, what is he doing right now? Has he been treated the same way as Sam? He thinks about Cas and their mom, have they missed them yet? No way. Because Cas wouldn't start missing them until tomorrow morning and it would take Mary much, much longer than that.

He sighs as he's pushed and pulled out several doors and walkways until they're standing in a long dim hallway. And thank you god, Dean is there. His brother, with his sparkling, expressive free eyes, the sharp features that bring out the playfulness in most of his words and actions. He's subdued now, but that fond little smirk finds its way to his lips as he catches sight of Sam.

Sam can't help but smile back.

Dean is leaning towards him, reaching a hand to him and Sam's heart jumps into his mouth at the thought of contact, of Dean surrounding him with that warmth and assurance he wants so bad right now. But he knows even before the guards are cruelly jerking his brother away that they won't be allowed and that at this point there was no help for him, no help for Dean.

He so wants to be strong for Dean, wants to fill him with strength and resilience of his own...assure him that Sam can take this, just worry about yourself Dean.

Instead he realizes he's listening to Dean struggle, listening to the pants and desperate grunts that are turning into whimpers as his brother is pushed and boxed into a little cell. And his stomach clenches with fear as he's dragged down the hallway and far from Dean, too far from his brother, god, he's rarely been this far away from the man for the last eleven years.

The natural balance of himself is all thrown off kilter by the separation. He feels wetness in his burning eyes, feels his muscles locking up on their own accord, thin shoes scramble on the floor as he tries to find friction and stop himself moving away from the door Dean has been discarded behind.

"Sam!" He hears his brother cry out, accompanied by what sounds like his brother giving the iron door what for. That's it.

"Dean!" He echoes back, jerks himself from the hands of the guards and rushes back down the hall, he doesn't know what he's going to do, or even what he could do...but he knows he's not going anywhere away from Dean when his brother is alone and panicking.

Sam is jerked back ruthlessly by both arms, he grits his teeth and growls at the two guards pulling him back down the hall.

"No," he gasps out, through sudden breathlessness, "Where are you taking me? Dean!" He calls again as he struggles against the two big men dragging him far...so far from Dean.

"Don't make us use the taser on you, Winchester." One says through clenched teeth, because they might be big, but Sam is one huge guy and he's using his body weight to deter them dragging him away.

One of his arms is dropped and when he tries escape he's thrust into the wall, his arm twisted precariously behind his back. The breath whooshes out of him as his face contacts with the wall and grunts with the pain and surprise of it.

He hears a door grinding and complaining on its hinges and his brain stops working all together as he's carelessly thrown into the shallow depths of a tiny room. He's back at the door in a heartbeat, all his strength and desperate pleading not halting or even slowing the closing iron door.

It slams in his face, solid and without regrets. Heavy breaths move the hair already hanging in his face as he stands and slaps both hands against the unmoving door that means so much for him, and none of it good.

Means no more freedom, means loneliness, means he spends every day wondering where Dean is, is he alright...is he alive? Means he stares at the same four walls everyday, and everyday he feels more and more like he's back in the cage...remembers that trapped feeling, the feeling of despair when he thinks of Dean with uncertainty.

And that's the thing that kills Sam. That eats away at his sanity, that has him teetering so dangerously already on the familiar edge. The not knowing anything. Helpless tears are streaking down his face as he lets out a full bodied, desperate scream at the tall, silent door.

Hands in his hair, turning to look with wide eyes at the small panel of sunlight let into his cell. Listens to the breaths rasp in and out of his body, rubs the wetness of his own tears in between his fingers.

Finds the only words he can murmur over and over again are, "Please don't leave me, Dean...please don't leave me."

And worse is he's not at all sure what he really means. Dean, please don't leave me, or Dean please don't die without me, please don't leave me here alone. And that's the number one fear, the reason why both brothers hate the feeling of helplessness and being separated from each other. Because they don't trust anyone else with the life more precious to them then their own.

So the thought plagues Sam, never going away. His brain wrapped and twisted around the instability and unknowing of his worry and the object of his thoughts and dreams all the time.

Please don't leave me Dean, please don't leave me behind...you haven't yet, right?

...tbc

Hope you guys like!? ;) More coming soon.


	3. Part 3 Cas

Part 3.

Cas.

(two days gone)

He screwed up, definitely screwed up. And he's shuffling unwillingly down the stairs into the bunker to meet Dean and Sam's pinched, disappointed and annoyed expression when he confesses that he lost the human mother carrying the nephilim child.

He reaches the bottom and stands slightly confused for a moment in the maproom. There are no sounds, no movements, lights turned down low. Usually his unannounced visits to the bunker illicit at least an alarmed, "hello?" or dusted fingertips across the butt of a hand gun. But today there is nothing, not even a disturbance of air as he enters Dean and Sam's space.

"Dean? Sam?" He calls gruffly. They're aren't back yet, he realizes, or they've already taken off for another hunt. He slouches tiredly into a chair, sighing with weariness of mind and heart. He let them all down by losing the woman, he has no other ideas or resources for locating her and frankly, he's got to ask the Winchester's for help now.

A couple of phone calls later both brother's phones go unanswered, and Cas sighs again with frustration. A little inkling, or some hushed voice whispering to him that something is amiss. He settles in to wait for them, finds coffee and some chips in the kitchen...Dean's laptop easily available.

He's growing comfortably relaxed over Netflix when suddenly he's surrounded with bright sunlight. Wind is whipping around him, the sky is fathomless, birds singing and the air so fresh and clear he can taste the crispness of it. The connection between himself and Dean so wide open and strong the feeling sweeps his breath away.

An old road is before him, the impala parked on the edge. Cas' heart is filled with relief at the sight of Dean's figure leaning against her side. He walks towards his friend and Dean grins wide when he sees him, straightens from his leaning position and takes a step towards Cas.

"Hey Cas," he says softly, "Good to see ya," his eyes flashing and sparkling in the sunlight and wind, a hand landing on Cas' shoulder.

"Hello Dean." Cas returns, glancing around, trying to figure out where they are, why and how? "Where are we?" He asks next, meeting Dean's eyes. That's when he notices the green is unnaturally bright, Dean himself looks much more carefree, though a tiredness hangs in the younger features.

"Where is Sam?" He asks next, and more importantly.

Dean laughs light and airy, "C'mon Cas, it's a dream..." his face darkens as he says the words and his body language tenses and grows jerky. The light grows dimmer, clouds roll in, a shaking takes over their surroundings as if an earthquake follows Dean's unsure heartbeat.

"Angels don't dream, Dean." Cas says calmly, his brow furrowing, realizing suddenly that something is very wrong. "Why am I in your dream, Dean?"

"Where is Sam?" Dean whispers to himself as he looks over his shoulder and beyond into something Cas can't see. "Where is sam?" The older brother asks again in tortured confusion. The surroundings melt around Cas and when he blinks the bunker is back, the laptop still playing the episode he was watching, the room and building still empty of both Winchesters.

He digs his phone from his pocket as quick as he can and dials Dean's number again, his beating heart pounding in his chest and temples. Finally he recognizes the gaping, nail biting sensation in his stomach as instinct of premonition that bad things are about to happen. The swooping worry is filling his connection with Dean that just a few moments ago had been so intense he'd felt they were together, but now it was so small and weak Cas is suddenly afraid...

But that can't be. Sam wouldn't let that happen.

Fear fills him as he remembers Dean's weariness, fear and confusion and the dark clouds rolling into the dreamscape horizon.

 _Angels don't dream_.

Something was definitely wrong.

...tbc

I know these short posts aren't like what I usually write, but this was something I wanted to play around with hope you guys enjoy!


	4. Part 4 Mary

Part 4.

Mary

(two weeks, four days gone)

She's absolutely sure there's a million unanswered phone calls from her on each of her son's phones. And not one on hers. Not even so much as text message. She's not sure if she hopes something is wrong and that's why they don't respond, or if she hopes they've just finally started ignoring her complicated ass and that nothing is wrong at all.

But she honesty just can't take it anymore. Worry gnawing away at her all hours of the day. She can't sleep, can't think about anything else, she's terrified they're lying cold and dead somewhere, forgotten by a world that never knew them. A world they tried to save over and over again.

She climbs into the sad excuse for an automobile she's currently driving and makes for Lebanon and her boy's home there. She's lost and uncertain, knows no one in this new America, Dean and Sam were her only anchors and she's so scared they're gone too. Her fingers tap nervously on the steering wheel all the way to the bunker, and she frowns at a strange vehicle parked in front of the bunker.

Hand gun held low, down beside her thigh she creeps up to the door. She opens it and enters, gun up and covering the bunker and the level down below her. The door slams behind her, but she's distracted by heavy footsteps crashing from the library and her body tenses gun trained on the source of the noise.

Castiel stands below her, eyes wide with hope, dimming with disappointment when he sees her, shoulders slumping. She starts down the stairs and he rubs his eyes and sits with a unconscious huff on the steps.

"Castiel?" She asks hesitantly, looking around. "Where's Dean and Sam?"

He shakes his head, a hand on the back of his neck, he looks exhausted and stressed. "They're not here." He huffs and looks at her with eyes brimming with pain and regret. "They aren't anywhere."

"What?" She asks, voice and breath lodged in her throat. "What do you mean?"

"Two weeks, four days." Cas says flatly, "That's how long they've been gone."

Mary stands looking down at him, eyes wide and glassy, reflecting the millions of possibilities flowing through her mind. A million phone calls, a million more...a million didn't even begin the cover the surface of everything that COULD HAVE happened to Sam and Dean...her sons. Her only family, the only people who believed in her and loved her.

"We have to find them." She says finally, and Cas looks at her like she's stupid. And she recognizes him as a man at the end of his rope. She can only imagine the last two weeks for him, all alone, ceaselessly searching for his dearest friends, burning the candle at both ends.

"You should get some rest." She says softly, slowly sitting beside him and laying a hand on his forearm, the tan trench coat soft and worn under her fingertips. She can smell her boys all over him, he's been staying here after all, probably working night and day, 24/7 trying locate the Winchester boys. She's realizing she doesn't know the half of what her sons mean to the people they befriend, save and redeem.

"You look exhausted, get some sleep," she urges, and she ain't kidding. Castiel looks terrible.

"Angels don't sleep," he says, "Angels don't dream." He mumbles sounding even more frustrated.

"You need to rest," she smooths over his annoyance, "You're no good to them like this."

"You don't understand do you?" He asks, blood shot eyes landing on her, and she wonders if angels can go insane because Castiel looks a little stretched, looks like he's on the edge...about to topple over.

"You are not the only one who stands to lose everything they have by losing Dean and Sam." He says slowly, his deep, baritone voice rumbling and sending trills of fear down her spine.

The fear and desperation in his eyes is more than she can bear, so she looks away. She clasps her hands together, despair and fear wrapping her heart in ice and filling her body and mind with freezing helplessness. She's doesn't even know where to start, doesn't even know her sons that well to guess at their whereabouts or what they would do when presented with a crisis.

Please be safe, is all she can pray to Sam and Dean as she sits beside her son's fallen angel and hopes beyond hopes that they haven't been taken from the two lost and broken people who need them the most.

...tbc

Not really feeling this story, one more chapter maybe.

...

SPN RENEWED FOR SEASON 13! I'm crying, thank you, thank you, thank you God!


	5. Part 5

Part 5.

Dean.

(two days gone)

It's night. He knows because the small strip of light leaking into his cell has gone dark. His mind is wandering, his hands fidgeting with the blanket that's over him as he lays on the cot. He's trying to sleep, please god, let him sleep. He lets his head fall to the side and his eyes drift lazily, rather in a haze.

He's drifted off listening to himself breathe when suddenly he's in the countryside in a delightfully clear dream. The impala is firm and real, all cool metal against his skin, the sun warm and a breeze playing in his hair, he sighs with bliss.

He turns to look down the road to see where it is he's supposed to have come from when he spots a familiar figure just off the road. He feels his heart leap as he spots his best friend, thrills of hope and happiness running down his spine.

"Hey Cas," he greets, "Good to say ya." And honestly, he can't even begin to describe how good it is.

"Hello Dean." Cas says, and it's so monotone and his voice so deep that Dean does a double take because he's never had a dream this vivid before. His friend's forehead is creased with a frown and he looks around and Dean tenses with Cas's obvious discomfort.

"Where's Sam?" Cas asks.

"C'mon Cas," he reasons without thinking, "This is a dream..." he stops as his brain screams a halt at him. His breath catches in his throat, his previously calm heartbeat speeding and booming in his ears.

Confusion clouds his eyes as the whole dreamscape turns dark and Cas is talking to him as if far away.

"Where is Sam?" He whispers to himself nervously. His brother wasn't here...the last time he'd seen him was when those bastard guards had drug him away...and now here he was free, with Baby and Cas and...

"Where is Sam?" He frets uneasily, watching in horror as Cas bleeds away, the green and blue of his dream bleeding and running away like wet paint. Instead of Cas's sapphire eyes he's staring sleepily at the gray, stained ceiling of his cell.

Alone...but in the same place as his brother.

He lurches up from his cot and retches into the toilet, shivering and feeling a cold sweat on his skin. As he sits on the cold concrete floor panting and shaking images of Cas and sun and the impala flash behind his eyelids. He wraps his arms around his knees and hugs them to him as he lets his weight fall against the wall.

Guilt wracks him as he thinks of his little brother cold, scared and alone somewhere just like him. He squeezes his eyes against the sharp feeling that he's betrayed Sam somehow. Betrayed his little brother, he whimpers with the hopelessness, the helplessness of the whole situation and banishes all thoughts of the impala, freedom and Cas from his mind.

The end.

Okay I'm all done. Hope you guys enjoyed all my emotions from that mid season finale! :):)


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